Comment Cost/benefit ratio (Score 5, Insightful) 392
Gaining covert physical access to a targets home/phone/computer is going to cost a lot more than just typing some commands into a terminal window. That would mean that ubiquitous surveillance goes out the window, and thus less collateral surveillance.
In addition it would also mean that covert physical seals could be better used to detect if your privacy has been invaded (Has the dust bunny on the back of my computer moved?), which is actually a step forward compared with electronic invasions.
I can't see anything wrong with all that (unless of course you take Omand's point of view that you have to watch all of your populace all of the time)